Description

King Cobra is perhaps the most vertical, and therefore the most technical of the 5.13s at Rumney. A common start which includes a hard 5.12 crux leads to a beautiful white face. Expect technical crimping and weight on your feet climbing. There have been rumors lately that a key hold has broken here.

The white face gives way to a left facing dihedral where the angle gets steeper and the holds get bigger. One of these holds, a two finger pocket way too perfect to be natural, can easily be skipped by the ethically pure.

A good route, King Cobra doesn't get the attention it deserves. Maybe it's the pocket. Maybe it's the reputation it has for technical climbing. Maybe it gets overshadowed by its famous neighbor, Predator. At any rate, King Cobra is worth a look.

For the record, I had nothing to do with any chipping of this route. It was bolted and attempted by others before I freed it. As it turned out, the unfortunately questionable holds (high and rt of the mid corner)are off to the side of at least how I climb it, so they shouldn't effect the aesthetics of the climb too much. Otherwise it is an excellent technically challenging route.

I took the fixed draws off this route today. They were in bad shape and I think they were the same draws from my 2006 photo of the route.

If anyone would like to claim the draws, let me know. I'm not sure how much use they'd be, but I'll certainly return them to you. Now that the season is winding down, maybe King Cobra would do well to be draw-less during the wet and icy winter months.

You had bolts on a line in-between Black Mamba and this route that finished up angling towards the top of where King Cobra ends. We worked on it after you left the area, but decided to leave it as a possible TR when we found there were several spots where it was easier to move left or right into the other lines, and also had a spot that always seemed wet. White Snake ended up being the easiest line, so I bolted that. I think some of the middle part of WS shared with what you had been working on.

No, you didn't have anything to do with the worked holds. I don't want to get into who did it as it was a momentary mistake, done in a crazed state, and regretted soon after. They even asked me if I could fix it up. Frankly, I didn't want to be seen wailing away on them with my hammer to erase them, and have to explain to everybody what was going on, so left them for later and never got back to seeing if I could make it look natural. Some day.

So, King Cobra was bolted first, by somebody else. I saw White Snake as the easiest natural line, after TRing Craig's line, so bolted and climbed that. Then I did Anaconda. When KC became open, I climbed that. I think I replaced Craig's old anchor and a few of the bolts. There is one up high that could be moved to make an easer clip, as most people seem to climb it differently than I did. I went straight up from the arching corner with a big dyno to a pocket (natural) and clipped, but most go over and get a shake to the left.

Thanks for clearing that up. I remember that the bottom of the line I bolted was always wet and this as one of the reasons I never really rp'd the line. Should have been savvy like you and rerouted/chosen another line up this fine wall.